Three dimensional spatial channel model based on planar arrays

The 5 G broadband wireless systems need to meet the performance requirements of the extremely high spectral efficiency and the full-dimension multiple input multiple output (FD-MIMO) technology has become one of the potential physical layer technologies in such systems. The 3GPP 25.996 technical specification relates to the two-dimensional (2D) dual polarization spatial channel model (SCM), which only considers the azimuth angle power spectrum of the horizontal dimension; the vertical dimension's elevation angle spectrum is not considered. Referring to the geometry statistics based 2D SCMs and the polarized MIMO channel models, this paper investigates the three-dimensional spatial channel model (3D SCM) which utilizes the uniform planar array antennas at the base station, and the studied channel model will be helpful to evaluate the performance of the FD-MIMO designs. Then, by using computer simulation, the comparison between the linear array configuration and the planar one is performed, and the effects of angular spread and cross-polarization discrimination on the mutual information are studied, where the propagation channels comprise both the Line of Sight component and the reflection components. In the final, the effect of the base-station downtilt on the cell coverage is investigated. Copyright © 2015 by Editorial Department of Chinese Journal of Radio Science